Student Blog: Academic Integrity: The Influence of Artificial Intelligence at Boston College

In the world we live in today, one where technology seems to be advancing by the second, the idea of academic integrity has certainly been an evolving issue in college. As someone who has never considered cheating on any type of schoolwork, it can be disheartening when you are sitting in the library and see another student copy and paste from Chat GPT. Of course, this is unavoidable, and I would be lying if I said that I’d never gone on Chat GPT to help me study for exams or brainstorm ideas for my public speaking presentations. But, when it comes to actually doing work that is your own, resources like Chat GPT seem to be constantly utilized, and people have even admitted to me that they have submitted assignments where they copy and paste from AI. Now, with this resource being so easily accessible to us, it is nearly impossible to prevent students from using it or another artificial intelligence site. Yet, I hope that there are those students, like myself, who prioritize being academically honest and completing their work themselves.

Okay, here is a story time. In September of this year, I sat in my 250-person psychology lecture. It was the class after we had taken our online quiz (one where my Professor assigned it and we had to complete it by a certain day). Now, this quiz was composed of both multiple choice questions and open-ended questions and was open notebook, but it did not contain any form of lock-down browser. However, knowing it was a quiz, the thought of cheating in any form or navigating away from the quiz site did not cross my mind. It was a quiz, an actual college quiz. I assumed my other 249 classmates would feel this way too. But, to my surprise, as I was seated in my chair I heard my Professor say something along the lines of, “We know a lot of you used Chat GPT. We ran your answers through an AI Checker and know that many of you cheated.” I was shocked. Of course, there are always going to be those kids no matter where you are that may look for an easy way out, but to know that so many of my classmates cheated that my professor had to make this announcement? I couldn’t believe it. And then, she went on to say “From now on, we will be taking the written portions of the exam in class, closed-note.” And I swear, there was a look of disbelief on many faces, including mine. 

I, as I’m sure most people are, am much faster at typing than writing, and I used my notebook notes to help me answer questions. I could not believe that the people who used AI had ruined it for everyone who completed the quiz honestly, and with academic integrity. And then, for the rest of the semester, we did our written quizzes in class, which was honestly not fair because since there were so many people in the class, there was never an equal amount of time for everyone to complete it. 

While this is just one specific event that happened to me, I am sure situations like this have or are happening across college campuses nationwide. Now, I am not against utilizing resources like AI to help brainstorm ideas or get quick summaries on things, because it is a resource that is now available to all of us. But, in terms of using it for your written assignments, I would highly plead with you not to because a professor could catch you, and more importantly, it could jeopardize other students who complete all of their assignments on their own, with integrity.

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